Court: Parole OK for prisoner who denies crime

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The California parole board can deny release for an inmate who lacks “insight” into the crime he or she committed many years ago. But a state appeals court says a prisoner who has behaved well during 34 years of confinement, and who poses a low risk of violence to the public, can’t be denied parole merely because he continues to deny the crime he was convicted of committing.

The Second District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles said Tuesday there was no evidence to support the Board of Parole Hearings’ April 2014 decision that Fred Swanigan was unsuitable for release. The court ordered the board to conduct a new hearing but made it clear that Swanigan should be granted parole, unless there was new evidence showing that he was dangerous.

Swanigan was 20 and living in Compton when he was charged with fatally shooting car repairman Ronald Como in September 1980.

Swanigan had brought his car to Como’s auto body shop six months earlier and Como backed into it with his own vehicle. The two argued over payment for the damage in the ensuing months, and three witnesses identified Swanigan as the man in jogging pants and a bandana over his face who came to the shop, pulled a gun and shot Como.

Two of the witnesses were children, and the third expressed doubt at first about the picture of Swanigan that he picked out of a police photo lineup. That was the main evidence against Swanigan, who offered an alibi for the time of the shooting but was nevertheless convicted of first-degree murder by a jury and sentenced to 27 years to life in prison.

The court said Swanigan had no serious disciplinary offenses in prison, and none at all after 1996. A prison psychiatrist assessed him as posing a low risk of future violence. But he has been turned down for parole 11 times, and at a 2012 hearing the board repeatedly cited his continued denial that he had committed the murder.

At his 2014 parole hearing, Swanigan at first said he had killed Como. When asked about the details by board members, he talked with his lawyer and then renewed his claim of innocence, saying he had felt pressured into the false confession as the only way to get parole. The board then turned him down again, saying he lacked both insight and credibility.

But the appeals court said Swanigan’s refusal to admit guilt, in the circumstances of this case, does not amount to evidence that he would be dangerous if released.

In light of the board’s insistence at the 2012 hearing, and at an earlier hearing, that it would not consider parole until Swanigan confessed, “it would take more than normal human fortitude to resist forever,” Presiding Justice Frances Rothschild said in the 3-0 ruling.

“But a lack of such extraordinary fortitude is not some evidence that a person is an unreasonable risk to public safety or is currently dangerous,” Rothschild said. She said Swanigan’s claim of innocence was not entirely implausible, and California law prohibits the board from basing its decision on a prisoner’s refusal to admit guilt.

Rich Pfeiffer, Swanigan’s lawyer in the parole case, said the court was reminding the parole board of its duty to “look at who the person is and what kind of a risk do they pose if placed on supervised parole.”

The ruling can be viewed here: www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/B261904.PDF.